1. Field
Apparatuses and methods consistent with embodiments relate generally to processing a digital image. More particularly, the apparatuses and methods relate to a high-resolution digital image in a device using limited resources such as a mobile terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, various types of videos and images including movies and TV programs are produced and used. The proliferation of information devices such as a Personal Computer (PC), the popularity of digital cameras and color printers, and the drastic increase in Internet users are driving forces behind the growth of digital image culture in daily living. Meanwhile, coding compression technologies have been standardized for still images and moving pictures, such as Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) and Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), and images are provided and reproduced with increased convenience using recording media like a Compact Disc-Read Only Memory (CD-ROM) or transmission media such as a network or broadcasting waves.
Conventional analog image processing is now giving way to digital processing of objects like still images or moving pictures. This trend will continue to increase.
As digital cameras have recently become popular, users may now capture objects digitally at any time in any place. Further, equipment with high-performance, high-capacity storage media has become more sophisticated.
Owing to the development of integration technology, mobile terminals such as portable phones or portable media players (PMPs) may be equipped with high-resolution capturing devices and provide high-resolution images stored in memories to users on a display like a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). Accordingly, users' demands for high-resolution images are also increasing.
However, compared to a desktop computer or a laptop computer, a mobile terminal like a portable phone or a PMP has limited hardware with low performance capabilities, and generally requires a long loading time to decode a user-requested high-resolution image. Specifically, the loading time increases as the resolution or size of the image increases. Since the mobile terminal does not provide a notification to the user of the long loading time during the long loading time, the user does not know if the device is loading the image during the wait for the loading time or if the mobile terminal has simply failed to perform the requested task.
Moreover, no screen is displayed on the display until the decoding of the user-selected image is completed. Hence, the user does not know whether the selected image is the one they need until the completion of the decoding. Especially when the user views images one by one, the time required for loading the images becomes burdensome.